


It's Not Goodbye, It's See You Later

by incogneat_oh



Category: Batman (Comics)
Genre: bonding with baby assassins is not for the faint of heart
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-03
Updated: 2017-04-03
Packaged: 2018-10-14 10:05:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,989
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10534245
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/incogneat_oh/pseuds/incogneat_oh
Summary: Dick’s finally moving back to his apartment, finally losing the cowl and becoming Nightwing again… but he feels like he’s forgotten something.





	

-

Dick sighs as he shoves the last box into the backseat of his car. “Man,” he laments. “I’ve been putting this off way too long.”  
  
“Are you quite sure you have everything you need, Master Richard?” Alfred says, from the front step.  
  
Dick shuts the door and leans on the car, lifting a hand against the glare of the rare Gotham sunlight. “Uhh,” he says. “Yeah, pretty sure. Unless you have a clone I don’t know about?”   
  
“I’m sorry to say you’ll have to go back to subsisting on cereal and pizza, Master Dick,” the butler says, not sounding sorry at all.   
  
And Dick laughs, says, “Boy do you know me, Alfie.”  
  
“Sure you don’t need some help?” Bruce grunts, from his spot by the open front door.  
  
“Nah, everything should be pretty much where I left it, cuz I’ve been paying rent,” and then Dick scratches his head, a little absently, says, “I  _have_  been paying rent, right, Alfred?”  
  
“Indeed you have, Master Dick.”  
  
“Where’d we be without you Alfie,” Dick says, shaking his head with a grin.  
  
“Dead,” Bruce tells him, at the same time as Alfred says,  
  
“I think it’s safe to say you would all be homeless.”  
  
There’s a pause.  
  
And then Dick says, “Hey, where’s Dami?”  
  
The boy is conspicuously absent.  
  
“He accompanied us so far as the foyer,” Alfred offers, as Bruce frowns.   
  
Dick sighs as realisation dawns, and he levers himself upright against the car, departure postponed.  “I think,” he says. “This was an oversight on my part.”  
  
—-  
  
He finds Damian in the cave.   
  
The boy is wearing workout clothes and a scowl, determinedly beating into a punching bag. He fights furiously, desperate and angry– messy, frequent strikes with more force than precision, kicks that would maim or kill. A flurry of barely-suppressed rage. Snarling.  
  
He is so focussed it takes him a while to notice Dick, who sits with his back against a cave-wall a few feet away. Watching interestedly.   
  
And Damian stops, clenched fist falling, mid-punch, to his side. And he stares for almost a full minute before, “…thought you left.”  
  
“Nah, not yet,” Dick says. Sits back, waiting for Damian to continue.  
  
Damian tries, he does. But then after a kick that could snap bones, he spins, says bitterly, “Don’t you have more important things to do?”   
  
Dick shrugs, says calmly, “I always have time for you, little D.” And when Damian doesn’t say anything, he adds, “We can spar if you want? But you should probably calm down a little first.”   
  
The boy stares at him with something like distrust, mixed with something else. Hurt, maybe. And then he sags, energy gone. Shoulders slumping, arms limp at his sides.   
  
Dick holds up an arm and says, “C'mere?”   
  
Damian, defeated, goes. He hovers on the edge of indecision before he gives in to sit beside his elder brother.   
  
Dick wraps an arm around his shoulders, and apparently doesn’t mind his sweatiness or his expression of clear annoyance– and when he tries to pull away, Dick squeezes once, a warning, and just says, “Deal with it.”  
  
And they sit in silence, Damian stiff and uncomfortable. Staring straight ahead.  
  
When Dick speaks, it’s almost to himself. “Can’t believe you were gonna let me leave without saying goodbye,” he mutters, shaking his head. “I woulda cried the whole way back to my apartment.”  
  
Damian gives a little twitch that Dick chooses to read as a suppressed laugh. But he remains silent.   
  
“It’s gonna be weird working alone again,” Dick admits. Again, almost talking to himself. “The first few weeks are gonna be the worst, because I just know I’ll keep expecting you to be there. I’ll probably end up talking to myself a lot, or waiting around for you to take down some bad guy.”  
  
And Damian still doesn’t say anything, but Dick doesn’t seem to mind. He trails his hand absently, tracing his fingers over a scar on the boy’s shoulder.  
  
It’s quieter when he speaks again. “I’m gonna miss you, partner. A lot.”  
  
Damian still doesn’t speak. But his eyes are downcast now, his mouth a hard line.  
  
“You’re such a good kid,” Dick tells him, earnestly. “Just do your best and give Dad some time to figure that out… then you guys’ll be unstoppable.”  
  
He shakes his head then, wordless disagreement. Doubt.  
  
So Dick, smiling, says. “ _Once_  would you just trust me, Dami? Please? It would do wonders for my self-esteem.”  
  
“ _Tt_. You have too much of that already,” Damian mumbles, to the ground, and Dick laughs delightedly.   
  
He pulls Damian closer and squeezes. Kissing the boy’s sweat-streaked temple, he says seriously, “I love you, little D.”   
  
Damian goes pink to his ears, trying to tut and pull away at once, says, “Grayson–”   
  
Dick doesn’t let go, says, “Don’t be that way. Everyone needs reminding sometimes.”   
  
And they sit in silence long enough for Damian’s blush to fade.  
  
Finally, “We’ll still see each other a lot.”  
  
The boy finally manages to pull away from Dick, looks toward the opposite end of the cave. “What does that matter to me, Grayson.”  
  
“It doesn’t, I guess,” the elder says. “But it matters a lot to me. So I want you to try too, okay?”   
  
Damian just shrugs, still looking away.   
  
Dick stands and stretches, opens his mouth to speak–  
  
–and closes it. Rocks back on his heels to soften the impact as Damian collides with his midsection, warm arms coming up to wrap around his waist and squeeze bruisingly.   
  
Damian Wayne is hugging him.   
  
_Willingly_.   
  
The hug is desperate, arms tight and face buried– and Dick realises that Damian must have thought he had stood up to leave. For all his bluster, his affected carelessness– he’s a ten year old kid, and a lonely one at that. Who’s gotten close to one person in his short life, and won’t let himself admit it.   
  
So Dick puts an arm around him and hugs back, one hand petting his sweat-stiff hair.   
  
Damian mumbles something into his shirt that sounds suspiciously like “you’re stupid and I hate you for leaving”, but Dick decides to overlook it.  
  
He says, thoughtfully, absently, “I’m pretty sure Batman can do without a partner for a night every once in a while. I think Alfred’ll be on our side, too, if he needs any convincing.”   
  
It’s a moment before the meaning of those words sink in.  
  
And the assassin pulls back to look into his face, suspicious– as if gauging his seriousness. Then he scoffs, crossing his arms over his chest, says, “You  _do_  need all the help you can get.”  
  
“I’ll talk to Bruce about it,” Dick says, smiling. He adds, “But little D, I want you to promise you’ll call me if you ever need me. Any time, okay? Robin’s a tough gig– and you know you can always talk to me about anything.”  
  
There’s a pause.  
  
“Well?” Dick demands eventually.  
  
“Well  _what_ , Grayson?”  
  
“Will you promise already? I swear to God, Damian Wayne, if I don’t hear from you at least twice a week  _there’s gonna be trouble_.”  
  
“Tt. Very well.”   
  
Dick grins triumphantly and sweeps his little brother up into another hug.   
  
–  
  
_[Two weeks later]_  
  
Robin swoops around the city, garish cape flared out behind him. He dives off a building, leaves it to the last second to fire his grapple for the sheer exhilaration (he wonders if Father will scold him for the 'recklessness, Damian– is this going to be a problem?’).   
  
The line goes taut, catching him out of the air and leaving his stomach with that dropping feeling as he swings up to a rooftop.   
  
“Robin,” Batman says from beside him, and Damian rolls his eyes safely behind the domino, waiting to get told off. “Go to the alleyway where we took down those muggers last week.”  
  
“ _Surveillance_?” Robin says distastefully, a touch of regal indignance.  
  
Batman just  _stares_ , and so Robin, feeling his lip curl into a sneer, nods curtly and leaps into the Gotham sky.   
  
On his way there, he broods (it’s a family trait). It’s evidently going to take his father a long time to trust him– and Grayson, who had actually seemed to trust him (seemed to  _like_  him, even, a novelty for the assassin), had done exactly what Damian had expected.  
  
Nothing.  
  
He had heard nothing from his supposed 'older brother’ since their… somewhat embarrassing farewell, weeks before. Damian supposes dully that is his punishment for showing emotion, and it serves him right. He knows better.  
  
Whatever lies Grayson had fed him, here was no different.  
  
Arriving above his destination, Damian drops to a crouch, in a blacker mood than he’d started the night. He puts his arms on his knees and rests his chin on his hands, staring determinedly into the alleyway. Safely out of the way, where he can cause no trouble, just like his father wanted.  
  
He bites back the sigh. If he was just given a  _chance_  to prove himself, like with Grayson–  
  
And Damian bites his lip hard, eyebrows furrowing, because it obviously hadn’t worked with Grayson. It was… a business partnership. Like it would be with his father.  
  
He tries to convince himself that he’s okay with that.  
  
So distracted is he with his musings, buried deep in self-pity and -loathing, he doesn’t see the figure in the shadows dive toward him.  
  
He barely has time to cry out before he’s tackled to the rooftop, one arm twisted uselessly behind his back, the other pressed under him. His face is squished against the grimy concrete, and he snarls.  
  
It’s the laugh that gives his assailant away.  
  
“ _Grayson_?”  
  
“No names in the field,” the voice says delightedly, still heavy on his back. “Now. You can consider this your punishment.”  
  
“Wh–? Get  _off_  me, you imbecile!”  
  
“We-ell,” Nightwing says, shifting his weight but showing no signs of letting him up. “The way I see it, you broke our promise. Twice a week, you said. I said there’d be trouble if you broke the promise.” The grip on Damian’s arm increases until it’s just shy of painful. “Robin. Meet trouble.”  
  
Damian just growls.  
  
And Dick, infuriatingly, laughs again. Then he moves, giving Robin enough room to turn over and half-sit up.  
  
“So,” Nightwing says, looming over him. “The way I see it, you owe me two weeks of information, kiddo.”  
  
“You’re a ridiculous excuse for a human being,” Damian snaps, because he’s entirely unprepared for this.  
  
Nightwing shrugs, says, “That’s probably true,” and rolls off his little brother. “Hang on!” and he cartwheels to the edge of the building, flipping right off the edge.  
  
Damian stays where he is, half-sprawled with his cape tangled beneath him. Waiting.  
  
And the older man reappears after a minute, holding two Slurpees, admirably not spilling them as he gets back onto the roof.   
  
“Cherry or grape?” he says. “Geez, don’t give me that look. I brought 'em with me, I didn’t  _find_  them.” (Damian is sure he is rolling his eyes.) He adds, “Left 'em on the fire escape.”  
  
“In order to tackle me,” Robin says, rolling to his feet.   
  
“It was very important,” Nightwing says primly, as Damian snatches a beverage. And he and the boy wordlessly sit side-by-side leaning against the air-conditioning unit. They drink in silence for a moment before Nightwing says, “Wanna catch me up on the last couple weeks?”  
  
And Damian pointedly looks away.  
  
“Aww, don’t be pissy with me. I missed the hell outta you, but your dad was being an ass.”  
  
Before Damian can snap an indignant response, there’s a crackle of static and Batman’s growl comes through– “Nightwing. Your comm-link is still on.”  
  
“Don’t eavesdrop on private conversations, B, that’s plain rude,” Dick says, slurping obnoxiously. And then he disconnects. He wriggles a little closer to Damian, bumping his shoulder, says, “C'mon, Robin. Catch me up.”  
  
And the odd thing is… Damian thinks he really does want to know.   
  
**END.**

**Author's Note:**

> Also on [tumblr.](http://incogneat-oh.tumblr.com/post/19952010488/its-not-goodbye-its-see-you-later)


End file.
